


Prime Numbers

by manic_intent



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Awkward new beginnings, Hospital meeting, M/M, Reluctant soulbound, Spirit Animals, That Sentinel/Guide AU where John is a Sentinel and Harold is a Guide, soulbond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 06:00:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1499279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Reese, <i>sapiens</i>, died the First Death in Ordos. It had been John Reese, <i>canis</i>, who had the speed and strength to limp out of the facility before the missile had hit; John Reese, <i>canis</i>, who had the instinct and stubborn will to go into hiding, to find a black market doctor to get fixed up, to organise a ticket back to New York, out of some blind animal need to go <i>home</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prime Numbers

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the meme of interest prompt: "There is a serious lack of PoI/Sentinel fusion in the fandom, seriously. I would literally weep in joy if I could have a fic about Sentinel!John and Guide!Finch doing their PoI business and failing to resist each other because of course John is Harold's Sentinel and Harold is John's Guide... *puppy eyes* Please ?"
> 
> I have actually never watched The Sentinel. I'm sure it's a great show, but I have the attention span of a goldfish and find it really difficult to follow TV shows. ^^;; What I gathered from reading fanlore about Sentinel/Guides AUs is:
> 
> 1\. Sentinels have hyperdeveloped senses, and using these senses sometimes causes them to zone out;  
> 2\. Guides are kinda like their soulmates, and can snap them out of these zone outs/side effects.  
> 3\. Guides are actually a fanon creation caused by an off-the-cuff comment about 'guides' in the Sentinel show.  
> 4\. Sometimes spirit animals are involved.  
> 5\. Sometimes there's an A/B/O sort of class system in place. 
> 
> I've never written a Sentinel/Guide AU before, nor do I normally read them ^^;; Nor do I like to follow fanon tropes, so... hope everyone enjoys this?

I.

John Reese, _sapiens_ , died the First Death in Ordos. It had been John Reese, _canis_ , who had the speed and strength to limp out of the facility before the missile had hit; John Reese, _canis_ , who had the instinct and stubborn will to go into hiding, to find a black market doctor to get fixed up, to organise a ticket back to New York, out of some blind animal need to go _home_.

The Prime World is difficult to navigate for long without reverting to _sapiens_ , but John's Guide has betrayed him and his Packmate and he is alone and heartsick with rage and grief. John has the training and the discipline to revert to _sapiens_ by himself, given time, but for now it seems easier to stay in the clean, black and white world of _canis_ , where everything is in simple and elegant lines of instinct and impulse. He hides the feral yellow of his eyes with sunglasses and pretends to be mute to conceal the serrated growl that has crept into his voice. 

New York is a welter of confusing senses and sounds and sights. John avoids the main city, stealing a car with only a little difficulty, a rag soaked in cheap perfume wrapped around the lower half of his face to keep himself focused. Even the _canis_ part of him knows that it's dangerous to have stayed _canis_ so long in the Prime, but he needs- he needs Pack. First, he needs Pack. 

Instinct spurs him to drive out of the City, towards the female who was once his mate - to the safety of a new Pack, perhaps. Dimly John remembers something that had concerned the _sapiens_ part of him, a few days and eternity ago, a phone call, a plea, but the details are difficult to grasp. John Reese, _canis_ , is on the hunt-flight. 

The female - Jessica, her name is Jessica - had settled down with her new mate in a town a short drive out of New York proper, and... something is wrong. Her house is empty, and there are flower wreaths and bouquets at her gate, left untended, some of the petals trodden into the dirt. It takes five minutes of breathing exercises and bloody-minded determination before John manages the focus to stop sniffing at the new scents around the gate and read one of the cards: then he's off to the hospital, fear-anger-suspicion, his driving haphazard in his urgency.

John doesn't remember parking, or getting into the main ward of the hospital to the help desk, or what he does that has the nurse on duty shrink back away from him to flatten herself against the wall. He remembers his pain, and then, his relief from pain, from _everything_. He remembers a cool hand pressed onto his wrist, and someone talking, calming all the other normals down. He remembers, very vaguely, following someone to a large black car, and then sleeping, curled in the back seat, _safe_. 

John Reese, _sapiens_ , wakes from the First Death groggy and desperately hungry and disoriented. He's in the back seat of a car, lying on expensive new leather upholstery, dressed in clothes he doesn't remember putting on but which he's evidently been wearing for at least two days. He has a painful headache that tells him that he's probably been _canis_ for far longer in the Prime than he's ever dared attempt, and Ordos, and Snow, and Kara and-

"Hello." The voice is nearly a whisper, from the front driver's seat, but it burns the world away. 

The Higher Prime is in what Kara used to call _Old Time_ , if inaccurately: here, where they are _now_ in the Prime, is a large golden plain, endless, under a great dark bowl of stars; like the bison plains of old. The great wolf that is John- _canis_ lifts its white muzzle to the stars, confused, shaking out its pelt. He hasn't been pulled so boldly into the Higher Prime without his tacit cooperation since his training days back in Langley. John's never met any Guide with the strength, or-

A _Guide_. Here? He sniffs at the air, but he can't sense anything - no - _there_. There's something in the wind, almost hidden. He growls, low and menacing.

 _Sorry to take you here,_ the whisper-soft, fussy little voice murmurs in his ear. _But I needed you calm._

 _Who are you?_ John projects. He's never had to speak in the Higher Prime before. The Company distrusted things that they didn't fully understand, and only used the Higher Prime as a method to send one-way information from Guides to outfield Sentinels by way of last resort. 

_A... friend. I'm sorry to have intervened in the hospital, but you were starting to make a scene, and they were about to call local enforcement. I'm also sorry about your friend._

_My friend?_ John repeats, confused, then, _Jessica!_

 _Here,_ the Guide whispers, and unloads a payload of information into John's mind. It's like nothing he's ever experienced, not even from the very best Guides in the Company: the information is precise, clear, organised - and tightly packaged. He knows why Jessica died, and when. He knows who was most likely the perpetrator. He _doesn't_ know why the Guide knows, or cared. 

_Are you from the Company?_ John asks, wary.

 _No! No. I'm a private citizen._ Lies can't exist in the Higher Prime, where speech is more thought and nuanced impressions than spoken words. _I was too late to help Jessica._

_You were a friend of hers?_

_In a way._ This is a not-truth, but not quite a lie. John mulls it over, snuffling at the ground, then loping in a curious circle. He doesn't see the Guide anywhere. 

_Show yourself._

_Sorry_ , the Guide apologizes. _I'm a very private person, you see. You can keep the car. I've left some money for you in the glove box._ There's a long pause, then just as apologetically, the Guide adds, _You should eat. Rest. And - I'm sorry - don't kill Peter Arndt._

_No!_ John protests, furious, but even as sheer determination lets him wrench out of the Higher Prime, he's already alone in the car when he surfaces, fully _sapiens_. Breathing exercises don't help, nor does any of the training he's learned or self-developed during his time in the Company, working with Guide Snow. The unknown Guide's command is an imperative, soul-deep: the _canis_ part of him shies away from disobeying. The _canis_ part of him feels joyous. There is a Guide again. There is Pack. 

Savagely, John presses the thought down, waiting grimly until the pleasure that the alien half of him feels is but a dim murmur in his mind. Whoever the unknown Guide is, he's dangerous - dangerous enough to pull a Company-trained Sentinel fully into the Higher Prime and hold him there while making a quick retreat in the Prime. He's stronger than any Guide John has ever met. 

John eats, and rests a bare minimum, then he goes back to the hospital to find the surveillance tapes. Unsurprisingly, he finds that there's been a localised 'error' that caused the tapes in the main ward to be erased just at the point of John entering the hospital and presumably leaving with the Guide. He does, however, find the footage from a sidewalk camera of a nearby convenience store that hasn't been tampered with. 

The video's too fuzzy to make out any real detail from the distance, but whoever is leading John into the car is definitely male, wearing glasses, and in a wheelchair. The injury doesn't seem feigned, judging from how the Guide has to painfully haul himself into the front passenger seat, and angry as the _sapiens_ part of John is at the intrusive imperative, the _canis_ part of him whimpers and squirms in sympathy. John ends up shaky and unsettled and frustrated, and it takes a long run and a short nap in the motel before he calms back down. 

He was told not to kill Peter Arndt. 

That's fine. Dying is too good for Peter, anyway. 

The _canis_ within him recoils and writhes, instinctively resenting the thought, but the _sapiens_ part of John prevails, as it's been trained to. He kidnaps Peter Arndt, and with a great deal of pleasure, hands him over to a drug cartel in Mexico with a clever bit of framing and planted evidence. John feels viciously better as he drives back up across the border.

II.

John's not entirely surprised to find himself back in the Higher Prime when he sleeps for the night, even though he's far away from Jessica's hometown and in a two-bit motel a few miles north of the border. This time, he starts to make a few tight, sniffing circuits of the grass, trying to pick up even small scents, prey-scents. Common Guide animals are prey-animals: deer, rabbit, small birds, mice. Somewhere, the Guide is hiding in the grass.

 _Peter Arndt is dead,_ the voice murmurs in his ear, and it sounds resigned. _Very violently dead, judging by the news reports._

 _I didn't kill him,_ John retorts, defiant, even as his ears flatten back against his skull. 

_I should have taken better care with my wording,_ the Guide muses, a little sadly. 

_If you really wanted him alive, you should have pushed what you wanted into my mind,_ John points out venomously. _You're strong enough to do that._

 _Strong?_ the Guide repeats, startled. _You're mistaken._

Startled, John lopes to a halt. _You're stronger than any Guide I've met. Whoever you are. No one's managed to pull me into the Higher Prime before without my help. No one's managed to give me an imperative that I couldn't expressly counter. No one's managed to wake out of the Higher Prime before me._

 _John,_ the thought comes, and it's gentle, soothing, careful. _You're the first Sentinel whom I've ever managed to calm down like this. I'm surprised that it even worked. It wouldn't have worked at all, if the situation was... normal._

_No, I-_ John blinks, slowly, then realization hits. There's only one real way that a low-level Guide could affect him so deeply. _I'm imprinting?_ With a total stranger?

There's a soft, startled laugh. _Statistically improbable, yes. I'm more surprised than you are, believe me. I've never been remotely compatible with any Sentinel whom I've ever met._

_That's why you're hiding from me!_ John accuses. 

_I don't think that either of us really wants to complete the imprint,_ the Guide points out apologetically. _Sorry._

Annoyed despite himself, John sits down on his haunches. _What's your name?_ he asks, finally, then adds, to his own surprise, _Please._

There's a long pause, then the whisper returns with a cautious, _Harold._

_This is a pretty crazy coincidence,_ John notes finally, resigned. Strong syncs like the one that seems to have happened between himself and Harold are one in a million.

This time, the pause is longer. _Nothing in my life is really a coincidence,_ Harold whispers, and then he's gone. John knows this instinctively the way his _canis_ side knows anything, and in the Higher Prime, now alone, he lets out a long and mournful howl.

III.

_You nearly killed yourself today,_ Harold accuses, the moment John wakes into the Higher Prime. _At the subway!_

 _For someone who doesn't want to imprint, you're spending a lot of time with me, Harold,_ John retorts, annoyed. _How did you know?_

There's another long pause, then, _Never mind how I know. You can't just-_

 _Don't say it,_ John growls savagely. _Don't tell me what to do if you don't want me!_

The thought-impression-words come out in a fierce surge before John can help himself. He's forgotten. You can't lie in the Higher Prime. 

This time, the pause is so long that if John wasn't attuned to the whisper of Harold's soul he would have thought that Harold had left. _Oh, John,_ Harold murmurs, and there's a soft flutter of wings, then a careful, almost imperceptible weight on his back, tiny claws digging into his fur. A small prey-bird. He nearly turns, but this close, he can sense Harold's nervous fear; it's almost paralysing in its intensity. Harold settles awkwardly on his back, and John fixes his eyes pointedly on his paws, pressed into the warm, firm not-soil of the Higher Prime plane. 

_So,_ John decides finally, _Maybe we should try this again, from the top._

_I don't know-_

_You said that nothing in your life is a coincidence. Why?_

_I can't tell you that._

_I would have jumped,_ John continues slowly, brutally, _But then I saw that there was a little girl with her mother on the platform, and I didn't want her to see that. So I didn't jump. But if she hadn't been there, I would've._

Harold shudders against his back, talons tightening. _All right. All right._ He shifts against John's spine, as though preparing to fly.

 _Wait! Wait. I want to see you. In the Prime. Before we do anything else._

_That's not a good idea,_ Harold starts, then he adds, uncomfortably, _All right. Yes. I'll pick you up from the motel tomorrow evening. We should... we should talk._

John wakes refreshed and with a sense of purpose that irritates him. He's been trained better than that. Still, he washes up and even spends what's left of the money he stole from Peter Arndt on a good shirt, jacket and jeans from the small town's only clothes shop. He spends most of the day feeling restless, then most of the late afternoon pinging between being agonisingly convinced that Harold wouldn't show and nearly jumping out of his skin at every car that drives past the motel. 

He supposes it's not surprising that Harold was never picked up by the Company or any similar government enterprise, if he's really a low-level Guide. The last census estimated that as much as forty per cent of the population have a touch of something _other_ in them, either a predator-animal or a prey-animal link to the Higher Prime, and for the vast majority of people, the link's not strong enough to enter the Higher Prime by themselves save in dreams. 

The scattered handful of Sentinels with a strong enough link to manifest traits out in the Prime, or Guides powerful enough to control unsynched Sentinels without imprinting are almost all working for various agencies, usually black ops or military. John's never heard of a blind imprint like this before happening outside of awful rom com movies or books, but Harold had seemed so... unsurprised. Resigned. 

The black car pulls into the driveway of the motel when it's nearly dark, and John has to force himself not to run to it. His stomach's in knots, and his mouth is dry when he lets himself into the front passenger seat and sees Harold up close for the first time. 

Harold is middle-aged, his hairline edging a slow retreat up a high domed forehead that seems set in a perpetual faint frown. Quick eyes dart from John's face to the car dashboard and back behind round, owlish glasses, and thin lips are set into a nervous line in a bookish face. Harold looks like any one of a million businessmen out of a big city, in what looks like an expensive bespoke wool suit, three-piece, and platinum cufflinks in a perfectly pressed shirt. Harold isn't handsome by any measure, but John's already rapt, Company training forgotten. 

It feels as though he's already known Harold all his life. 

"Close the door, John," Harold's voice cuts through the warm cloud, and reluctantly, John tears his attention away briefly - just enough - to close the car door and pull on his seat belt. Harold's growing flushed as he fixes his eyes firmly on the dashboard. "This isn't a good idea after all."

"Probably not," John agrees. "But you didn't seem surprised that this is happening."

"I'm not even sure how it's possible," Harold says incongruously. "I've really never synced with any Sentinel before. I can barely enter the High Prime by myself: most nights I don't even dream within it. I'm pretty close to being null. While you're... while you're a top-flight Sentinel, as far as I can tell. Ex-Company."

"Biochemistry," John manages. It's a struggle to stay fully _sapiens_. The _canis_ part of him wants to manifest, to turn his eyes feral and open his senses to all that Harold is, to everything, to rub his cheek against Harold's thigh and beg for a touch. He digs his nails hard into the palms of his hands. 

Almost null. That explains why John couldn't really sense Harold in the Higher Prime. And to think he had thought that Harold had just been very good at hiding himself. "In a way, this is good," Harold says shakily. "I don't know what I would've been able to do if you - if my Sentinel - had actually really needed me."

 _My Sentinel_ , John thinks, with a helpless and visceral pride, even if he nods slowly. "Can't fight it," he says finally. "So."

"Yes," Harold agrees reluctantly, and it hurts to hear it, hurts all the way down. "All right. I'll... look, I'll get us somewhere, a safehouse, then we can have the rest of this talk." 

Harold's 'safehouse' is actually a beautiful apartment in Austin, but John barely notices. He would have carried Harold if Harold hadn't insisted on the wheelchair, fussing around Harold in the lift and shifting impatiently when Harold fumbled with the keys. He helps settle Harold in the living room, orders in take-out, and finally - finally, gets to sit beside Harold and rest his head on a warm thigh. Fingers hesitate on his back, then press awkwardly into the spikes of his hair, and John purrs.

"John," Harold murmurs, his voice far away. "You've got to come back, John."

Reverting to _sapiens_ feels like too much effort. John mumbles a retort, his eyes resolutely closed. The fingers close lightly on the back of his neck. "For me, John. Please?"

It's a struggle, but the _please_ gets to him, deep down, and soon John's sitting bolt upright against the wheelchair, blinking. He hasn't had an episode like that since his teens. Harold stares down at him, openly relieved, and John forces himself to trace back to the start of the manifest and _ah_. Yes.

"Your injury. What happened?" 

"It was an accident." Harold says, too measured and firm for it to be true.

"You have to trust me," John points out, "Or this will go badly for the both of us. I wouldn't have turned _canis_ if I hadn't sensed something wrong about it." 

"All right," Harold allows, his face growing pinched, then he exhales. "Quite possibly, a great number of people are trying to kill me. That's why I didn't really want to go through with the imprint, John. It's not because... it's not because of anything else." Harold's ears are growing red, John notes, amused. "Any Guide would be happy to have you. While I'm uncertain what I have to offer you other than a possibly very short life of violence."

"But that's the best sort of life there is," John observes facetiously, and grins when Harold merely frowns unhappily at him. "What do you know of 'top-flight' Sentinels, Harold?"

"Very little, until recent circumstances required me to read up on the topic," Harold admits wryly. 

"Well then, maybe you know," John rolls to his knees, pressing close, placing a hand on one of Harold's wrists and the other on his thigh, "That we're so very successful at what we do because half of how we think is something _other_. My... other half has always been a far better judge of character than I ever have been. If he wants so badly to be near you, then I'm willing to bet that you have far more to offer me than what you've mentioned."

The ring of the apartment doorbell startles them both, Harold into flinching and John into automatically reaching for the service piece that isn't there. Harold lets out a shaky laugh, even as John pointedly nuzzles at his neck, pressing his lips against the jump of Harold's pulse for a second before getting up to answer the door. 

Dinner proceeds in a brittle silence, and at the end, when John cleans up and bins the leftovers, Harold says, nervously, "Tonight? Into the Higher Prime?"

 _Yes,_ John thinks, but what he forces himself to say is, "If you're ready." He tells himself that the open relief on Harold's face doesn't hurt. 

"Maybe in um, a few days or so, then."

IV.

John hadn't been sure what Harold would have wanted to do in the 'few days or so', but he hadn't expected _this_. Harold had tried to be secretive at first, a futile task when his injury kept him confined to a wheelchair and when his minder happened to be a Company-trained Sentinel.

"So you have an... artificial intelligence which gives you the social-security numbers of people who are about to die?" John asks, still mystified after the third attempt Harold had made to explain his day job.

"I haven't been very successful to date," Harold admits, and shoots John an uncomfortable look.

"So you knew about Jessica."

"Yes. I tried the local police, with an anonymous tip off, and then I tried finding her, but I was too late. The police tip didn't help." Harold exhaled. "I'm not very good at this, and the injury doesn't help."

"Well," John decides dryly, "Then perhaps it's lucky that you met me, after all."

Harold's glance is oddly frozen. "A little too lucky," Harold murmurs, then he turns back to his laptop, and his tone becomes brisk. "There's a coffee shop that Miss Everley likes to frequent. I suggest that you head there and use the program I've set up in your phone to pair with hers. We need to find out what sort of trouble she's in."

"You're all right in here by yourself?" John asks, reluctant to leave. 

"I'll be fine. Most of these numbers have fairly simple problems. Maybe it can be resolved quickly."

Miss Everley's problem doesn't turn out to be simple, what with a firefight with the local drug cartel and all, and in the end, John sees Everley off at the local airport with a new passport and a pointed suggestion that the young lady _not_ get involved in any more unusual get-rich-quick schemes. The entire matter's trivial, but strangely exhilarating, and John's in a good mood as he returns to the apartment - at least, up until he realizes that Harold is gone. 

The _canis_ in him panics, and it takes ten minutes before John manages to calm himself back down and do a circuit of the place. Harold's laptop and overnight bag are still here. There aren't any signs of a forced entry or a struggle. Ergo, Harold probably went out for some air.

It takes an hour of futile searching before he finds Harold in a nearby park, watching fish swim in a pond - Harold looks startled when John marches up to him. "Is it safe for you to be out here?"

"I'm well-versed in avoiding digital tripwires, Mister Reese," Harold notes firmly, and John scowls as he wheels Harold back to the safehouse, nervous violence humming under his skin. He knows that Harold can probably sense it, near null as he is. He doesn't apologize, even when 'a few days' turns into a week, and then two, and they're back in New York, in another safehouse of Harold's: an abandoned old library, of all things. 

John knows he should walk away. Harold's vocation is the most insane thing John has ever heard of, and the Machine sounds like something right out of science fiction. But he doesn't walk, difficult as Harold is sometimes, hard as it is to even just _be_ around Harold in this state, halfway between imprinting and nothing. The _canis_ within him is growing increasingly impatient, and the Higher Prime feels lonely when they're there and Harold isn't. 

Bottled up as Harold is, it's hard to get a gauge out of him in the Prime, and John resigns himself to the situation. Living with a Sentinel of his level of attunement to his 'other' side is difficult for anyone but other top-flight Sentinels: it had been one reason why Jessica, who had been null, had eventually drifted apart from him. He knows he has to be patient. Harold will eventually have to warm up to him.

His other half doesn't understand the need. John finds himself manifesting more and more, sometimes utterly randomly. He always ends up back in the library, sitting at Harold's feet, blinking up into Harold's nervous and uncomfortable stare. Some of the drops are First Deaths - pure blackouts that go on for more than an hour - and that's frightening. He's never been so out of sync with what the _canis_ half of him wants before. 

It takes nearly a month and a disastrously timed First Death in the middle of a mission for John to finally, abruptly, fully wake in the Higher Prime. It's disorienting for a moment, as he stares at his hands and lifts his fingers to touch his face, half-expecting to feel fur.

John turns around, for a moment afraid that he's alone after all, that this is an actual dream, but Harold's watching the sky behind him, hands pressed in the pockets of his suit, his expression soft, amazed. "Is this what you see each time you come here?" Harold asks. "All this?"

"All this what?" John asks, curious. "The grass, the sky?"

"The colours, the depth, the scents," Harold supplies, blinking, and stiffens up when John steps over, carefully circling an arm around the small of Harold's back. "I still... I still don't know if this is a good idea."

"It probably isn't," John agrees, though he presses his mouth to the pale column of Harold's neck, drinks in Harold's scent; here, merged full, part _sapiens_ and part _canis_ both, he can only feel the purest sort of satisfaction. He is complete. 

"Yes," Harold murmurs, and fingers push tentatively against John's skull, holding him close; lips brush against his cheek, then his nose, as John lifts his head, and the first kiss is all nerves, badly fumbled. John laughs, Harold gasps, and then it all fits together, the both of them against the world, in one perfect single step. This time, Harold kisses John like he means it, sweet but demanding, sinking down onto the grass at a touch and pulling John on top of him, wide-eyed, glasses askew. 

"You don't need this here," John tells him, deliberately pressing a kiss onto one of the lenses. 

"I know, I, there are some rather more obvious benefits," Harold pulls off the glasses, then pointedly brackets John's hips with his legs with a limber ease that would have been impossible with Harold's as-yet-mysterious injuries out in the Prime. Harold's still nervous, John can sense it, so he takes his time, allowing Harold to get used to the weight of someone on top, the taste of someone else against his mouth. They'll do this in the Prime once Harold gets better, John decides, and Harold shakes against him into a startled laugh: of course he's heard the sentiment.

"There'll be scars," Harold murmurs, as John unbuttons the bespoke suit, tugging it off Harold's narrowed shoulders. "Out in the Prime. Worse. I've got bolts in my spine. I can't bend like this." 

"Do you really think that I care about that?" John cuts in, amused, and Harold flushes bright as John starts to unbutton his vest. 

"I have to admit sometimes I, ah, sometimes I'm not sure why your _canis_ side is so attached to me." 

"Maybe you smell like steak," John notes jokingly, and grins as knees stiffen beside his ribs. "Also, you're richer than God."

" _John_."

"Because," John murmurs, shifting up so he can press his lips against Harold's ear, pinning him down, "Because you're unlike anyone I've ever met, Harold. Because you have a heart big enough for the world and the strength to care enough to want to do something about it. Because you saved me twice."

"Because of biochemistry," Harold corrects, though he has a half-smile as he says it, and John licks against it, playful again. 

"If I didn't want to imprint," John notes, "If both sides of me didn't want to, I've got the training to leave. Imprinting is usually rather optional for a Sentinel of my level. That's why we're so useful for government work. Fewer complications."

"It doesn't seem optional to me," Harold says doubtfully, though he allows John to kiss him again, deeper, the months of torturous waiting fading into an old memory, until they rub and grind against each other on the dirt, John mouthing at Harold's neck until he feels Harold shudder into a groan. 

Pleasure and intimacy is simpler out in the Higher Prime; strung together, wound tight, the binding comes to them both like a single perfect universal chord, that rings out to every fibre of their souls.

V.

Having Harold's presence always in the back of his mind feels intrusive at first, but then that's just the _sapiens_ part of John thinking. Besides, it's well worth being able to know where Harold is _all_ the time. John doesn't like how Harold seems to be growing increasingly hands-on with the numbers that they get, and the bond gives some comfort there.

What's _particularly_ difficult to handle is Harold's continued nervous shyness outside of the Higher Prime. Two months into the bond, John hasn't even seen Harold naked: he doesn't even know Harold's real name, or where he was born, or how Harold fell into this strange life of quietly using his billions to help others. It rankles sometimes. John suspects that he would resent it more if his _canis_ intuitive impression of Harold hadn't been proven right again and again. Harold is a far better man than John deserves. 

He tells Harold this one night after a particularly difficult number, and Harold laughs a small, startled laugh so surprisingly bitter that John stiffens, but doesn't explain himself when John arches an eyebrow at him. It takes an effort to say nothing, but when he helps Harold to bed in the hotel room that they're sharing, instead of supporting Harold up onto the sheets, he sits Harold up on the edge of the bed and kneels between his thighs.

Harold sucks in a soft, quick breath, spots of colour coming to his cheeks. "Mister Reese."

" _John_ ," John corrects, with a quirk of his lips. "Let me do something for you, Harold. Out here."

"I... I, but John, my hip-"

"All you have to do is sit tight and enjoy yourself," John continues, "Easy." 

"You - you really want to?"

"Harold," John says patiently, and strokes a hand carefully up Harold's inner thigh, "Yes, I very much want to suck your cock." At Harold's startled gasp, John allows his tone to go lower, rougher, "I want to get you all the way down my throat. I want you to fuck my mouth until I choke on your come and-"

"Oh God, John," Harold breathes, thin and high, and his hands tremble against John's cheeks as John unbuttons Harold's pressed pants and draws him out from his boxers, nice and thick and clean. As he presses his lips to the thickening flesh, Harold stutters breathlessly, "I really didn't think you would want to." 

John doesn't bother trying to argue - he's too busy taking Harold into his mouth. It's been a while since he's done this to anyone: it's been a long time since he had partners other than Jessica and then Kara, but he gets the rhythm of it back after a while, curls his fingers tight where his mouth can't reach. He drinks Harold down, inch by sloppy inch and lets him back up just as slow, groaning as he goes, his tongue pressed hard to the pulse of the vein and curling tight over the bitter taste of the tip. 

Harold whimpers then, brittle and rattled, and John _growls_ as he takes Harold back in, deeper, until he can feel the press of Harold's cock stretching his throat. He sucks in a deep breath of Harold's musk like this, and feels the _canis_ part of him fight and roil. It _wants_ Harold, desperately, wants everything that Harold can give and all that Harold can't. John sucks roughly to distract it, his throat closing tight over the hot length of Harold's cock and he doesn't even try at finesse. 

Fingers dart and curl in his short hair as he groans, choked and hungry; with _canis_ so close to the surface he can hear every wet and eager sound he makes, every desperate and wounded cry from Harold's throat. It's perfect. John's nearly sorry it's over when Harold finally stiffens up and pushes futilely at his shoulders before spilling deep down his throat when John refuses to budge. 

"Oh," Harold whispers, when John licks him lazily clean and buttons him back up. "Oh."

"Convinced?" John rasps, with a smug grin. Harold stares at him uncomprehendingly for a long moment, then he lets out a shaky laugh and leans stiffly down to brush a kiss over John's forehead. 

"I - let me help you with-"

John shifts back with a lazy grin, amused when Harold blinks. He doesn't remember precisely when he had come, focused as he was on Harold's pleasure. "Convinced?" he asks again, more dryly, and Harold grows beautifully flushed, even after clean-up and John curling up in fresh clothes against Harold's side in bed. 

They wake in the Higher Prime, John on four paws, Harold a tiny, pale shadow in the grass that flickers a few times before it smudges and resolves into Harold's human form, sitting confused in the grass and flinching when John nudges him playfully in the side. Harold sinks his fingers into John's scruff, then tickles behind his ears and grins tentatively when John thumps his tail against the ground. 

"The bond's balanced your link to the Higher Prime," Harold muses, "But mine's still as unstable as ever." 

_Because you're still holding back,_ John tells Harold bluntly, and licks a long wet swipe up Harold's cheek, grinning wolfishly when Harold yelps and swats at him. _You're still afraid, deep down. But that's all right._

"It is?"

 _Wolves are patient,_ John explains, and licks Harold's cheek again before slumping heavily and luxuriously into Harold's lap. 

"I'm sorry that you have to wait at all," Harold whispers, but much of the nervousness is gone, and all of the fear, and John is happy to wait for the rest to change. Fingers tickle up under his jaw, then across his ribs, and John sighs contentedly, at peace, under the vast dome of a different sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! :3 Follow my twitter at @manic_intent if you like to talk :3 Or feel free to shoot me a prompt! Note: I'm pretty vanilla, and I don't write non-con or major character death or 3somes/moresomes.


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